Men's Health: The Book of Muscle : The World's Most Authoritative Guide to Building Your Body

Schuler's guy-talk style makes the book enjoyable to read, even on days when you have no intention of going to the gym. The artistic drawings of muscle groups, full-color photographs of beginning and ending positions of every exercise, and stunning close-ups of buffed body parts make The Book of Muscle is as beautiful as it is practical and motivating, an exceptional gift for the fitness guy in your life, and well worth the price. Highly recommended for men wanting to get in shape or stay there. --Joan Price

Product Description
Exercise ain't easy. The body is a complicated machine, with 650 muscles and 250 million individual muscle fibers. Some would say taming those fibers and building strong, healthy muscles is not an act of labor. Some would say it's an art. Here's a book worthy of that art. The Men's Health Book of Muscle is the big, lavishly illustrated, full-color coffee table book that only Men's Health could produce-one that doubles as the ultimate guide to building a better body. The goal of The Book of Muscle is simple: create a beautiful, artistic guide to the body that also helps guys build great physiques by showing in detail how muscles work and how that knowledge can be put to use. Inside, you'll find lush anatomical illustrations and photographs of a quality that no other book on fitness can match. You'll also find complex biological information, boiled down to language any guy can understand, and three 6-month workout programs, one each for beginner, intermediate, and advanced lifters. It's big muscles, big benefit, and beautiful all at the same time. It's the book you've always wanted from the guys at Men's Health, the fitness experts you trust.

The workouts, by noneother than Ian King, provide over a year of quality, well planned routines that will keep you challenged and growing. And Ian definitely follows the less is more principle by keeping the workouts under an hour. I have been doing the Intermediate program for 12 weeks now and I am getting stronger and growing in body, mind and spirit. King also manages to keep things lively with changes in routines and innovative exercises and combinations that beat the hell out of those monotonous 3 sets, 10 reps workouts you find in the magazines.

Get Book of Muscle. It's the best bang for the buck for the novice and the seasoned lifter.


Excellent for any Level Ironhead   October 3, 2003
Karl Miller (Phoenixville, PA United States)
144 out of 185 found this review helpful

Finally, Men's Fitness has gotten it right - a book that does not promise immediate results...but instead one that helps you formulate a plan, that is equal part guide to the weightroom, solid nutritional advice, and key principals for involving the mind in your workout. This is without a doubt their best book yet on the value (and IMPORTANCE) of personal fitness.

Ian King may not be the best known name in the world of fitness, but among weightlifters, he is known for hard core, no-nonsense weight training, with functionality stressed over mere muscle mass. Along with Men's Health regular Lou Schuler, they have compiled the best muscle guide to come out of Rodale Press - and one of the best guides I have ever read.

Along with showcasing the various muscle groups, and giving well explained details of their importance, the book goes on to spotlight various exercises for each group. What is nice about the exercise pages is that they show great variation in order to allow for full definition of the particular muscle, and also give great explanation and illustration for the exercise, allowing the reader the chance to really learn more about proper form. It's great to read a book like that that uses pictures to explain and educate, rather than to have an excuse to photograph chiseled bodies in sweaty conditions.

This book has everything - whether you are a newcomer, or have been in the weightroom for years, you are bound to learn some new exercises, or some outstanding twists on some old favorites. And the sample programs written by King are well reasoned, and offer a creative mix of hypertrophic and endurance building routines. And they allow for customization to meet specific body part needs.

Great book guys - this has me thinking about subscribing to Men's Health again (if only they would stop running the cheesy "pump up your sex life" articles).


As good as it gets   December 28, 2003
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

As someone who has been lifting weights for 5 years, this book was originally intended as a reference manual, maybe with some new ideas on how to tweak my workouts. After 2 months, I have nothing but praise for the authors. In addition to what has to be the most authoritative book on weightlifting out there, the workouts put together by King and Schuler are soem the most effective programs around.

A giant 2 thumbs up.


This is the one....   February 22, 2006
Judge (Colorado, USA)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

I think the some 40+ reviewers before me said it best, this book is amazing. I dont wanna bore with the same old review about how much I enjoyed this book (you can tell that by the rating I gave it), I just wanna give you the basics. The routines in this book take a bit longer in the begginning to complete, but become progressively shorter as you continue the program, which helps with recovery and not being overtrained, a common problem among other, lesser workout books. Two of my favorite things in this is the use of "Tempo" and the variety of changing your routine slightly every 3 weeks, I mean you just havent lived until you've lifted very light weights that leave you shaking as a result of lifting them ever so slowly, again the tempo thing. The nutrition information is minimal, but I believe it gives you enough, 98% of the exercises and routines are explained very well, and the 2% thats not, you can probably figure out on your own. Last but not least, you will be comparing this book to every other workout book out there, and most will fall short, the bottom line is this book is worth your money and time, don't pass a good thing up.

p.s. I plan on buying the testoserone advantage plan next, and I'll let u know how it goes.